OK, this is a long post, so first a short synopsis, before
I get to the more verbose reasoning behind it:

Have each guild that collects reputation collect
it from differing sources, to encourage partying.

- - -

I'm a bit concerned about certain elements of the new
Lords of Chaos guilds. While they have been, in my very
limited experience, quite interesting and rich additions
to the MUD, they've also made a certain old problem flare
up, with a vengeance.

Namely, resource sharing.

We've had our share of debate back and forth how experience,
loot, corpses, souls or other kinds of collectibles should
be distributed among party members, and how that should
relate to solo play. In fact, I've seen all of these except
loot go through code-based ruling, and that ruling to change
from time to time.

Experience points have been straight divisions, level dependant,
newbie encouraging, fit with leading and leadership skill bonus.
Corpses have at times been consumed by blades, single barbarians,
barbarian hordes, liches, staves and lord knows what, souls have
been separated from corpses in preserving and destructing manners
etc. Some guilds have gotten reputation solely by slaying their
enemy alignments or races, others by collecting marks specific
to that guild, like ear marks or psychic patterns.

Through all of this, there has been a strong vision throughout,
one voiced over again by the admins: BatMUD is a party MUD.
Sure, we can solo, and actually often soloing is more efficient
in regards of certain collectibles, but partying should always
be the preferred option when looking from the design viewpoint.

Now - I'm not saying that that's the way it HAS to be. But if
that still IS the administration's view on what kind of game
they want to produce, then I'm urging to (re-)examine the way
these new Lords of Chaos are rolling into a resource conflict.

(continued)